Yoicks ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Backup server (syncthing + btrfs) Meteor detector (plugged into an SDR looking at Graves) Christmas flashing lights :) TV server & PVR (tvheadend) Weather station Wildlife camera (Motion) Seed propagator thermostat (DS18B20 + Energenie switch) A couple of spares for playing with

All pis used as servers

SMB disk server, rsnapshot Docker host: gitea, gollum, syncthing, motioneye, ocrmypdf, deluge

Pretty much anything I want on all the time.

This week I going to do an energy logger with my brand new ATHOM/Tasmota plugs, to find out if/why my little fridge + freezer are using 2 kWh per day and if the yearly defrosting makes a difference.

Sure, it's got plenty of power for that. The limit that I found is that they cheat a little (maybe a lot) with the RPi OS packages and eg. Firefox won't run because the package for it isn't compatible with the CPU architecture of the Pi Zero (1) ("armel" in Debian package talk). I expect that's because the package is actually adapted from the current Debian package, and Debian don't support the Pi Zero (1).

PS. Model A, Model B, 2, Zero, 3 Model B+, Zero 2. This naming scheme is getting to be almost as confusing as ARM CPU architectures are.

I wanted to decode P25 digital radio transmissions with a Pi Zero but it didn't have the oomph. Or at least not with the software I could find some time ago, everything seems to be "forked from a fork of a fork" sort of stuff and there's little clear documentation of the changes (though the maths is over my head anyway to be honest). I always get a bit fed up with it all when I try to get back to that actually, but I might summon up the strength for another attempt once this Zero 2 is obtainable.

Much more successful, though still wanting for the power (or more to the point, the multiple CPU cores) of a Pi Zero 2, is this project that I've been working with others on for interfacing with the Vectrex video games console:

I thought about that, but I have a few things that aren't ported to ARM to run here, and a few more things that need CPU grunt.

Thought about doing that, but realised if I need to sell the house, it would be a downside.

I could possibly replace my server with a Pi, yes.

yes. Beacuse I am in transition and upgrading all machines here, I do have at the moment thee screens and keyboards .

Once the need to switch on one of them hasn't occurred for a few months, I will wipe it and then also remove the screen from the server perhaps - although its a handy second machine when friends visit.

Id be interested in hearing more about that.

Yes. I increasingly find that the interweb is full of 'scripts that will solve your problem' and is increasingly bereft of 'this is the documentation that will enable anyone else to write a better scripts than I hacked up'

I have a routine called 'scrape' that is built out of libcurl, that essentially takes a URL and returns a pointer to the memory block containing the contents of that URL page

it took a long time to develop, because all I found on lib curl was "this is an example, that works, ( but doesn't do what you want) "

Exactly the same words could be applied to something else I was trying to do - some arbitrary audio signal processing in a browser's JavaScript. Eventually I found the right combination of magic spells, but really I didn't want and shouldn't have needed to have to learn so much about the details of javascript's asynch thread implementations to do that .

Richard K complains about 'cargo culting' - well if you don't explain how stuff works to the 'islanders', rather than providing more packaged solutions to problems they don't have, it remains the most cost effective way of developing things.

Sometimes I wonder if the reason why the gurus don't explain in detail how things work, is because they secretly cargo culted or random monkeyed it themselves and *don't actually know how it works* either:-)

And you?

- Network timeserver (ntpd doesn't play nice in KVM guests)

- 2 x "Management modules". These are serial port servers for UPS's, server consoles, cable modem power switch and incoming dial-up modem (so I can poke the cable modem :)

- WLAN bridge. Provides backup internet by bridging mobile WiFi hotspot to wired LAN

- Several security cameras, running very bespoke software

- A dedicated compile server, for software development

- Several in use for development of new things

- Several unused, and one with a fried CSI port (but otherwise fine), following a small upset on the bench. The camera that was attached is toast, but useful as a template for drilling cases.

Here's the full inventory...

Name Model Location Use

---- ----- -------- ---

pi01 Pi-B+ Box Spare pi02 Pi-A Box Spare pi03 Pi-2 Server shelf Timeserver pi04 Pi-2 Box picam dev pi05 Pi-2 Box CSI fried :( pi06 Pi-2 Box picam dev pi07 Pi-2 - Given to xxx for pp pi08 Pi-3 wr picam (cam03) pi09 Pi-B Box Spare pi10 Pi-B+ Server shelf Management Module pi11 Pi-2 Comms shelf Management Module pi12 Pi-3 Server shelf WLAN bridge pi13 Pi-3 wr picam (cam01) pi14 Pi-3 wton picam (small display dev) pi15 Pi-3B+ wton picam (large display) pi16 Pi-3B+ wr picam (cam02) pi17 Pi-4 4G Server shelf Dev/Compile host pi18 Pi-4 1G Box new pi19 Pi-3B+ wton ubus dev pi20 Pi-3B+ wton picam dev pi21 Pi-3B+ wton picam dev pi22 Pi-3B+ Box new pi23 Pi-3B+ Box new

The smart plugs are TPLink HS110(UK). The app is one I found on the web

A word of warning: of the various HS110s that we have, only some of them show up in the app. It's probably a firmware thing. It's not a problem: we just choose the ones that work as ones that we want to monitor; the rest still work in the TPlink app and can be monitored and controlled in that app but can't be graphed.

Our old freezer failed, luckily not too long before we discovered it so we were able to cook and re-freeze most of the contents. But it made us realise that we needed to be able to monitor the temperature to look for problems. Monitoring power consumption was a low-tech solution using technology that we already had.

Would you believe that after we'd started monitoring freezer consumption, another freezer (in the kitchen) failed shortly after we bought it - on that occasion the graph showed continuous power usage with no cycling to maintain the correct temperature. Again we were lucky to detect it fairly soon. That was due to a manufacturing fault: all the coolant had leaked out :-( Getting it replaced under warranty was a frustrating task because of incompetence in the manufacturer and maintenance companies, but it all worked out OK in the end.

The failure to boot is something which only affects the Pi4. The Pi3, with the same HDD and USB hub, booted fine. Looking on Pi forums, some people said that cutting the +5V line in the Pi-to-hub lead worked, to stop the hub phantom-powering the Pi as it was booting, but it didn't work for me. Luckily the powered HDD caddy solution worked fine.

I run my two Pis headless. You need tweaks

hdmi_force_hotplug=1 # allow Pi to boot with no monitor connected hdmi_mode=82 # force 1920x1080x60 even though monitor can’t be auto-detected

in /boot/config.txt for the Pi4 to allow it to boot headless.

I mainly use RealVNC on Windows or Android to access the Pi's desktop, though I've also used SSH (PuTTY on Windows, JuiceSSH on Android) for command-line.

Yes, what cameras and what software do you use?

We've got an old Foscam FI9810W security camera with IR and pan/tilt (but no zoom). We did have two, but one recently started rebooting after being up for about 30 seconds - long enough to confirm that everything seems to be working OK but still it reboots.

Up to now we've used the motion sensing and alert-to-email facilities built into the camera, but it would be nice to be able to record video when the motion sensing detects movement - ideally with buffering so as to capture the few seconds leading up to the motion triggering.

I've used iSpy on Windows for this. It works OK, but you need a paid subscription to enable the sending of an alert email, and it only takes/emails one photo, whereas the camera's built-in monitoring takes/emails five in rapid succession.

I was hoping to find some good free software for the Pi, preferably as an installable package rather than a complete OS build, so I can run it alongside other things like the weather-station or PVR software.

We'll probably get a couple of higher-resolution cameras: the Foscam is

Since the Foscam can run from a (big) USB battery, I've thought about setting it up outside on the lawn somewhere to watch for nocturnal wildlife - limited only by the range of the wifi!

You've beaten me, 17 plus a couple of spare Zeros and my original now retired 1B 256MB.

Name Type Location Uses

------ ----- ----------- ------------------------------------------- RPi-S 4B Study Development machine and SSH gateway RPi-RO 4B Study RISC OS machine RPi-RA Zero Study Robot arm controller and camera RPi-Z Zero2 Study Touch screen and prototyping board RPi-B1 4B Bedroom 1 TV/media and temperature sensor RPi-B2 4B Bedroom 2 TV/media and temperature sensor RPi-B3 Zero Bedroom 3 child monitor camera and temperature sensor RPi-B4 Zero Bedroom 4 child monitor camera and temperature sensor RPi-L 4B Living room TV/media and temperature sensor RPi-K 2B Kitchen TV/media and temperature sensor RPi-F 2B Family room Pan tilt camera and temperature sensor RPi-N 4B Cupboard NAS server RPi-A 3B+ Attic ADSB plane tracking and temperature sensor RPi-G 1B Garage Garage door sensor and temperature sensor RPi-D Zero Driveway External camera RPi-X 3B Shed Weather station and garden/pool camera RPi-P 3B Off site Backup server

---druck

Zero W with hifiberry DAC feeding a 200W hifi fed from house server and internet radio via own webpage for control

Looks like it may replace the 3A+ as the popular solution for all but the most demanding robotics projects

Pi400: used for personal web & twitter access whilst I am at work Pi4B: used as a Kodi Media playback Pi4B: with touch screen, mainly used with a Bitscope as a DSO Pi3B+: Another Kodi Playback device Pi3B+: Web application developement server Pi2B: WEb Server running Wordpress Pi3A+: Octo print server Pi3a+: Robot tank & test platform for Piwars PiZero: Bought by mistake, currently used as xmas decoration PiZeroW: Internet radio (pimoroni Pirate radio) PiZeroW: Hexapod robot (re-capitated Tobbie) PizeroW: Gyro Stabalised Mecanum Rover

• Undefined(as yet) 3* Pi3a+ (1 on loan), 2 x PiZeroW, 1X Pi4(2gb) also have a number of dead units due to wiring mishaps (pi3a+, Pi2B & at least 2 PiZeroW

My Name is Alister & I am a Pi-Aholic

On Sat, 30 Oct 2021 10:48:24 +0100, "NY" snipped-for-privacy@privacy.invalid declaimed the following:

Other than initial configuration of a new OS image (which I do perform with HDMI and Logitech "Unifying" keyboard/mouse, using my puny gaming TV, all of my R-Pis, including both 4s (2 and 4 GB) boot without monitors/keyboard. I don't recall ever modifying config.txt as to monitor type/etc.